Thursday Scoop: Google Walkout

The big story…

Google Employees Across the World Are Walking Out Today

Today, thousands of Google employees are walking out to protest the company’s mishandling of sexual misconduct. (image: Wikimedia Commons)

In what started as a small walkout has turned into a global protest at Google offices across the world. (Read more about how the walkout started in Tuesday’s Morning Scoop.) Today, thousands of Google employees are walking out in a demonstration against the leniency that the company shows towards employees — particularly executives — accused of sexual misconduct. From Tokyo to Switzerland, employees are participating in the “Google Walkout for Real Change” with five clear demands:

In national news…

Maryland Football Coach Fired One Day After Reinstatement

The University of Maryland’s President Wallace D. Loh fired football coach DJ Durkin on Wednesday, one day after he was reinstated. CNNreports, “In the wake of the offseason death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair, Durkin was on administrative leave while the university waited on two reports, one into the medical treatment McNair received and the other into the culture of the football team.” Durkin was originally given the OK to return by the board of regents following the release of the team culture report on Tuesday, but faculty and students “expressed serious concerns” about the coach remaining, according to Loh. (Read more on this in yesterday’s Morning Scoop.)

In global news…

Turkish Official Confirms the Circumstances of Khashoggi’s Death

Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor Irfan Fidan announced yesterday that Jamal Khashoggi was strangled or suffocated and then his body was dismembered shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Although Fidan did not provide evidence to support this conclusion, his statement was the first official account from Turkey on what the country believes happened that day.

In politics…

Oprah is Hitting the Campaign Trail in Georgia

Yes, you read that right. Oprah Winfrey is hitting the campaign trail in Georgia in support of gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Winfrey is not the only celebrity to show her support for Abrams in Georgia in what has been a contentious campaign. Read more in Tamia Heard’s report for CMN.

Also in global news…

Indonesian Investigators Locate Lion Air Plane’s ‘Black Box’

Investigators have retrieved the “black box” that belonged to Lion Air Flight JT610 that crashed on Monday killing all 189 people aboard. The box is also known as the flight data recorder and should give investigators insight into what went wrong on the flight — but it may take two or three weeks to read and possibly months to analyze. Meanwhile, rescue boats are still searching for the cockpit voice recorder, which may give a much clearer and quicker answer as to what happened.

Also in politics…

President Trump to Send 15,000 Troops to the Border

President Trump has stated that he’ll send somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 troops to the U.S./Mexico border to meet the migrant caravan. This is more than the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan and roughly the same as those in Iraq and Syria. Furthermore, this total does not include the Border Patrol officers or ICE officials who will be there as well.

In technology…

Facebook Is Being Summoned for Questioning (Again)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was question by the U.S. Senate earlier this year regarding the Cambridge Analytica Data Breach. Now, the U.K. and Canada — who have given Zuckerberg similar summons for questioning that he refused — are banding together to hold a joint hearing on fake news. The proposed event would take place in London in late November and would be the first international committee to investigate the platform’s role in the spread of misinformation.

Trending today…

A Picture Perfect Love Story

A photographer snapped the perfect photo of a marriage proposal in Yosemite National Park and took to Twitter to find the lucky couple.

Twitter help, idk who these two are but I hope this finds them. I took this at Taft Point at Yosemite National Park, on October 6th, 2018. pic.twitter.com/Rdzy0QqFbY

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Grace Cooper is a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where she studied Nonfiction Writing and Psychology. When she's not obsessively reading or writing about the news, you can probably find her eating too much pizza and watching When Harry Met Sally for the hundredth time.